Alfred de Grazia:

PUBLIC & REPUBLIC : Political Representation in America

CHAPTER II

Part D

THE NEW ENGLISH RADICALS

It was Burke, perhaps more than anyone since then, who defined the
characteristics of the political mind of the late eighteenth-century English
Radicals. He was of the opinion that "our representation is as nearly
perfect as the necessary imperfection of human affairs and of human
creatures will suffer it to be." But a portion of those who now demanded
an inquiry into the state of representation based their criticisms of the
constitution

" ...on the supposed rights of man as man. As to the claim of right, the
meanest petitioner, the most gross and ignorant, is as good as the best; in
some respects his claim is more favourable on account of his ignorance;
... he sues in forma pauperis.... They who plead an absolute right cannot
be satisfied with anything short of personal representation, because all
natural rights must be the rights of individuals; as by nature there is no
such thing as politic or corporate personality; all these ideas are mere
fictions of laws, they are creatures of voluntary institution; men as men are
individuals, and nothing else.... It is ridiculous to talk to them of the British
Constitution upon any or upon all of its bases; for they lay it down that
every man ought to govern himself, and that where he cannot go himself
he must send his representative."[97]

There is no end to their claim, Burke insists. "Give them all they ask and
your grant is still a cheat..." Not only is the House of Commons not
representative, according to their principles, but they refuse to stop there.
"How come they neither to have the choice of kings, or lords, or judges, or
generals, or admirals, or bishops, or priests, or ministers, or justices of
peace?"

The beginning of the Radical movement, so roundly abused by Burke,
corresponds to the period of growing tension in the relations between the
American colonies and England. Like the Levellers, more than a century
before their time, the first Radicals were furious at the state of the House
of Commons and based most of their demands, which hardly seem
striking today, on the need for parliamentary representation. Thomas
Paine, in his Rights of Man (1792), denied that the Revolution of 1688
was anything but a changing of places, and declared that the settlement
ensuing would have to be torn up in favor of a new settlement on the
basis of reason and the natural rights of man.[98]

In so far as we are concerned with the new Radicals here, their activities
were divided into the periods of the decades before the French Revolution
and the decades of the reaction to the Revolution. In neither period did the
ideas of the Radicals change substantially, but the resistance they
encountered to their ideas were magnified in the latter period by the wave
of revulsion against and fear of Jacobinism. Many of the political leaders
who had given some support to Radical reforms in the first period were
alienated or frightened by the period of reaction, so that the end of the
century saw a Parliament which was changed little from that of the early
seventeenth century. The proposals to consider a petition of the Society of
Friends of the People for reforms of representation, introduced by
Charles, Lord Grey in 1793, included recommendations for liberalization
of the franchise to include householders, the holding of elections on a
single day rather than over a period of time, and payment of the wages of
representatives from the public treasury. The recommendations received
the support of only forty-one members of the House.[100]

The triumph of virtual representation was assured; the reformers had to
wait another thirty years to make a new beginning. Looking at the state of
representation a few years later, an enthusiastic editor of Jeremy
Bentham's Plan of Parliamentry Reform could with bitterness point out the
contrast between Old Sarum with no inhabitants and two members of
Parliament, and Yorkshire with nearly a million persons and two member,
and comment:

"This is what the determined enemies to Reform call virtual
representation. Why do not the Oligarchy form themselves into a Grand
Eating Club, to eat for the whole nation, and then tell the starving people
they are virtually fed."[101]

The beginnings of the Society of the Bill of Rights in 1769 to support the
candidacy of Wilkes for Parliament developed very quickly all the
essential elements in the program of what we call direct democracy from
our experiences with the Levellers. The basic dogma was the idea of
personal representation, the belief that every man had within him the right
to vote.[102] Every man was thought to possess a natural reason which
made him fit to judge political issues. Liberty, so the Society held, much
after the fashion of Rousseau, consisted in frequent elections: the
Septennial Act, said Cartwright, suspended "the political liberty of the
nation for six parts in seven of human life." Parliamentary representatives
were delegates -- the "proxies" and "attorneys" of the people who elected
them so that they might "transact its business and receive its wages."
Such representatives should make no pretense of independence or
originality of action. A much extended suffrage was demanded, especially
in the boroughs.

Although there was some sentiment among Radicals in favor of Pitt's
Reform Bill, others, like Jebb, thought that it was "deficient with respect to
any probable good effect in stemming the torrent of corruption."
Furthermore, Jebb denounced any moderate reforms as shams,
practically speaking, and believed in completely explicit instructions from
constituencies to their representatives. The following, which he drew up
for use of the candidates running for Parliament from Westminster in
1782, is illustrative: "I do declare upon my honor, that upon a fair
signification of the wishes of a majority of my constituents, I will either act
in conformity to their instructions or embrace the first opportunity of
resigning my seat." As shown here, the attitude of all direct democrats in
respect to the relative position of the constituent and his representative is
to make out of representation what was originally the relationship between
baron and King under Magna Carta, that is, presentation. Jebb introduces
the idea of initiative and recall, of which there was some hint in the ideas
of the Levellers and which is a logical extension of the demand for
individual "presentation." He insisted that if the counties in common
council declared the Parliament dissolved, its dissolution would be a
constitutional fact. And if the same common council of the people passed
regulations for the conduct of elections, such regulations could by-pass
the Commons and go directly to the Lords and King for approval, after
which time they would become part of the law. Most radicals at first did not
espouse the elimination of the Lords and Crown.

Richard Price, for example, circumvented the unrepresentative features of
the Crown by preaching that the Crown was more of a servant than a
sovereign, and the Crown owed its office to the choice of the people
(Revolution of 1688) and therefore was the only lawful sovereign on earth.
Price claimed further that representation is the only source of legitimacy in
government and that the only way to achieve such legitimacy is through
the efficient administration of a system of elections.[103]

Later Radicals did not find such a painless way of reconciling
representation and monarchy, and Radicalism soon displayed its natural
tendencies of republicanism and anarchism. The development of these
later tendencies after 1790 coincided with the period of reaction and the
French "terror," and met the full force of hostility from conservatives and
nationalists. But during the preceding generation it seemed as if Burke's
ideas against instructions to representatives would lose out and that the
delegation theory would win. Annual Parliaments and extended suffrage
were frequently and seriously discussed in the Commons and at many
public meetings. The House of Commons in 1780 resolved that they
should consider petitions for the redress of grievances and remedy the
grievances. Instructions to representatives were common in the popular
boroughs and it was by no means the activities of Burke which put a stop
to them, as Lecky states; rather, it was the reversal of the ruling sentiment
in the country brought on by the effects of the French Revolution.[105]

The reform plans which Pitt attempted to introduce in the Commons in
1783 and 1785 were a good example of the synthesis of representative
ideas which England had reached by the time of the French Revolution.
They combined Radical recommendations for rational districts and
penalties against corrupt practices with middle-class ideas of increased
representation for the growing cities and with rural demands that the
counties be given a share of the representation taken from the rotten
boroughs. Finally Pitt proposed to compensate the owners for the loss of
their "property."[106]

By 1790 Pitt was opposed to reform and after that time the liberal
consensus was lost completely. Proposals for changes failed to reach a
vote in 1790 and 1792, while they lost by majorities of 241 in 1793, 165 in
1797, and 142 in 1800. The next hope of the direct democratic ideas of
direct representation came in America; Bentham burst out enviously:

"Look to positive experience: behold it in the American United States.
There you have, not merely democratic ascendency in a mixed
government, but pure democracy, and nothing else. There you have, not
one democracy only, but a whole cluster of democracies; there, all is
democracy; all is regularity, tranquillity, prosperity, security: continual
security, and with it, continually increasing opulence, enjoyed with
practical equality." [107]